Cafe Orient — Restaurant in Ottawa

Honestly, how does this place have a rating higher than a 2? This is NOT what Hong Kong food tastes like. Not even close. It actually barely qualifies as servable food.

Ordered the Baked Portuguese Chicken Rice, a basic item from a HK menu. This is not HK food. No. No. No. No. So wrong. The sauce was gooey. So gross. It was also the wrong colour. Too pale yellow. Biggest issue though was there was no flavour to it. Absolutely none. The whole thing tasted just like wet fried rice. Well, at least they fried the rice, I guess. HK milk tea was also not strong enough. The whole meal was disgusting that I didn't even finish 1/4 of it.

The service was good, though girl seemed afraid of her mom. I was here in the summer time and the place was hot and stuffy.

Even though they say they are a HK resto and the front of their menu says "Authentic HK Cafe", these are both things this...

I have been coming to this restaurant for over 30 years. A typical Hong Kong style eatery. It has been and still is the ONLY Chinese restaurant on Somerset I will go to.

If you just feel like an afternoon tea, you can order HK style milk tea here, with a fried donut or a fried bread stick. But Cafe Orient offers a HUGE menu, from dim sum to all kinds of noodles and rices, and all kinds of meat dishes. During dinner time, you can order from Set Menu and it comes with soup and rice.

Today my sister and I started with the HK Milk Tea with a fried donut. Then we ordered some fried wontons with sweet red sauce. For dinner, we ordered Eggplant/tofu in garlic sauce, and a Sesame Chicken. We also had a Stir-fried rice noodles with shrimps and scrambled egg sauce. Delicious. We had plenty leftovers to take home. Very...

This restaurant has been my saving grace here in Ottawa. I've grown up eating Cantonese food with a very picky family, we've tried the best of the best in the GTA area and I can truly say that this restaurant meets those standards. I've been so homesick and craving traditional Cantonese food, but traveling back to the GTA during the pandemic is not an option.

I've ordered 5 or 6 times, each order 2 different dishes and all of them have been fantastic and true to the taste I grew up with. In particular, the congee is superb, probably better than anything I've had in the GTA it is smooth and flavourful.

To the owner, thank you for preserving the taste of Chinese food all the way...